The Athletic’s cfb podcast just said Stanford had higher ratings than entire new bug 12 which I knew had to be pure bs.
Current and future Big 12 team's viewership numbers from 2022
- Thread starter JP4CY
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The Athletic’s cfb podcast just said Stanford had higher ratings than entire new bug 12 which I knew had to be pure bs.
I live in LA and have never seen a tv at a sports bar set to Pac12 Network. In contrast the cable channel that plays Laker games is on in every sports bar all year playing laker reruns.
I’m sure it’s more than zero but actual viewers are probably lower than our cyclones.tv games on mediacom.
But it doesn't take an entire bar full of viewers to get a lot when you have an area the size of greater LA. Places like Iowa and fanbases like ISU may dominate the % of fans interested but the size of Iowa will always be an issue. There is no question in my mind that Big 12 schools top to bottom have way more loyal fans than the PAC schools but how big are those fanbases/markets?
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To be fair, they did have a magical, made-for-TV run through the season that certainly attracted many viewers outside their base audience (assuming these are 2022 numbers)
The Baylor 365 guys did a good breakdown of the 2013-2022 numbers. Cross-conference comparisons are tricky with different media deals, but it's the best analysis I've seen.
https://sicem365.com/s/13048/how-many-viewers-did-your-ncaa-team-attract
https://sicem365.com/s/13048/how-many-viewers-did-your-ncaa-team-attract
I also don’t think unless you’ve lived in CA anyone can imagine how rare college sports fans are. I’m far more likely to run into an ISU or Iowa fan here than a UCLA fan and I live 7 miles from the Rose Bowl. The SDSU guys I’m friends with did not know they were in the final four.
It’s not like an Iowan is 5x or 10x more likely follow college sports than an Angelino or someone in Bay Area, I think it might be like 500x more likely. The only college fans I know are transplants like me, or an Angelino who went to Michigan and returned a Michigan fan.
When I drive up into PNW or up into Utah it’s different and I see college sports fans again.
Same in greater PHX. I do think ASU has way more fans than it seems but the % of people in the area who give a **** about ASU isn't that large. Nothing compared to what DM is for Iowa/ISU or like Omaha is for the Huskers. Washington seems to have pretty good support in greater Seattle. Much better than the other PAC schools in large markets.
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I know what you mean though with the diff between just having it on tv or a bar putting it on and real fans. If it was to the point of truly being only about real passionate viewers and fans ucla wouldn’t have gone anywhere and we might have passed on all our recent adds other than Utah, byu and maybe Az and UCF.
Cal and Stanford are experiencing some of that reality, probably the first time big brands in a massive metro didn’t matter much because they really have no fans. If Big Ten ever does rescue them they know they won’t generate money in future of media and it’ll be for other reasons.
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I know nothing about UCF. Do they have good fans? What makes them more attractive than USF?
I’ve been under the impression their fanbase is growing and engaged, that they built a mid sized stadium but our fans in it. My coworker’s son had freshman orientation a few weeks ago. They aren’t sports fans as a family and they asked me why the only thing anybody at UCF wanted to talk about was joining the Big 12.
I think in the big cities it comes down to being successful.
There's so many other things to get into, so many other sports opportunities, no one has time for things that aren't winning. You can only even have the time to attend so many games. If ASU were winning, they'd have plenty of fans come out of the woodwork. Same for a school like Stanford. Its high ceiling, low floor, whereas most big 12 schools in smaller markets are high-floor (because that attention is there even when down), lower ceiling.
